(Archived Article) Wind Turbine Projects Run Into Resistance

This post summarizes an interesting New York Times article with the above title that was published on or about September 9, 2010. (When I download an article from my Kindle to my computer, the date recorded is the date of the download, not the date of publication.)

Although this article did not contain many of the numbers that I am so fond of, it still highlighted a problem that does not receive much discussion.  People interested in the proper siting of wind turbines should take note.

BARSTOW, Calif. — The United States military has found a new menace hiding here in the vast emptiness of the Mojave Desert in California: wind turbines.

Moving turbine blades can be indistinguishable from airplanes on many radar systems, and they can even cause blackout zones in which planes disappear from radar entirely.

Clusters of wind turbines, which can reach as high as 400 feet, look very similar to storm activity on weather radar, making it harder for air traffic controllers to give accurate weather information to pilots.

Although the military says no serious incidents have yet occurred because of the interference, the wind turbines pose an unacceptable risk to training, testing and national security in certain regions, Dr. Dorothy Robyn, deputy under secretary of defense, recently told a House Armed Services subcommittee.

Because of its concerns, the Defense Department has emerged as a formidable opponent of wind projects in direct conflict with another branch of the federal government, the Energy Department, which is spending billions of dollars on wind projects as part of President Obama’s broader effort to promote renewable energy.

Eliminating turbine clutter on radar is complicated. Part of the challenge is that many radar systems in use in the United States date back to the 1950s and have outdated processing capabilities — in some cases, less than those of a modern laptop computer.

While there are technology fixes to ease interference on these aging systems, it can be tricky to filter out just the turbines.

On radar, “a wind turbine can look like a 747 on final approach,” said Peter Drake, technical director at Raytheon, a major provider of radar systems. “We don’t want to have the software eliminate a real 747.”

The Energy Department says the problem should be solvable through new technologies.

DOE Blog Post: Farming Out Heat & Electricity thru Biopower

Farming Out Heat and Electricity through Biopower

December 16, 2011

 

Cows like these in Skagit County, Washington, supply the biodigester developed by Kevin Maas of Farm Power up to 70,000 gallons of manure per day. The newest Farm Power facility in Washington generates enough electricity to power 500 homes. Photo courtesy of sea_turtle.

Julie McAlpin

Communications Liaison, State Energy Program

Maas' biodigester:

• Creates electricity from the biogas produced through anaerobic digestion.
• Recycles dried, fibrous solids from the process to make cow bedding.
• Returns digested liquid waste back to farms for fertilizer.

Five years ago, Kevin Maas and his brother Daryl started a business producing electricity from what many would consider an unlikely source -- cow manure.

Kevin Maas developed an anaerobic digester and then a company around a biodigester, which heats and processes dairy manure and other organic wastes in an oxygen-free environment designed to induce digestion by bacteria and then collects the bacteria’s output -- methane-rich biogas.

The system, the first-of-its-kind in the state, stores the gas from the biodigester and then feeds it through bright yellow pipes into an engine generator to produce electricity. After digestion, the fibrous solids are separated and dried, then returned to dairy farms for use as cow bedding. The digested liquid is also returned to farms, stored in lagoons, and then spread on fields, providing nutrients for crop production.

A few years later after learning about the State Energy Program, the Maas brothers applied for and received a $1.06 million Recovery Act grant from the Department of Commerce to construct a second digester near Lynden, a small Washington town just south of the Canadian border.

Nearby MJD Farms, a dairy farm with over 2,000 cows, agreed to supply the manure -- 70,000 gallons per day. 

A closed-loop heat extractor at the Lynden facility uses the heat produced by the burning methane biogas for multiple purposes. First, it heats the digester vessel to sustain bacteria growth. Second, it dries the fiber product. Third, it heats water that is piped to a nearby commercial greenhouse for radiant floor heating.

Maas calculates that the greenhouse, owned by Van Wingerden Greenhouses, will save approximately $30,000 per year in energy costs due to its participation in the digester project. The greenhouse employs 15 workers.

Farm Power Lynden generates over 6,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year, 20 times the amount of power to run its own operations, or enough electricity to power 500 homes. The excess electricity is sold to Puget Sound Energy under a 10-year fixed-price contract.

The methane emissions eliminated by the Lynden facility are projected to reduce net annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 3,000 cars off the road.

Farm Power is currently working to establish additional digester projects in the state. “The State Energy Program is outstanding,” said Maas. 

Anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste is a proven and rapidly growing source of renewable energy generated at more than 150 other facilities around the country.

(Archive Article) Noisy Wind Turbines Attract Complaints

The following was gleaned from a New York Times article published October 5 or 6, 2010.  Although the New York Times is a left-leaning newspaper, its reporters are honest enough to report some of the drawbacks, as well as the advantages, of renewable energy.  That, together with figures of cost, generating capacity, etc. can lead to reasonable discussion of the pros and cons of locating a renewable power facility in a particular area.

I hope you enjoy this condensed version of the article.

Noisy Wind Turbines Attract Complaints

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

VINALHAVEN, Me. — Nearly all of the residents on this island in Penobscot Bay, celebrated the arrival of three giant wind turbines late last year. That was before they were turned on.

Now, a dozen or so neighbors living less than a mile from the $15 million wind facility here, say the industrial whoosh-and-whoop of the 123-foot blades is making life unbearable.

In Vinalhaven, an audio consultant hired by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection determined last month that the 4.5-megawatt facility was, at least on one evening in mid-July when Mr. Lindgren collected sound data, in excess of the state’s nighttime sound limits. The developer of the project, Fox Island Wind, has contested that finding, and negotiations with state regulators are continuing.

Maine, along with many other states, puts a general limit on nighttime noise at 45 decibels — roughly equivalent to the sound of a humming refrigerator. A normal conversation is in the range of 50 to 60 decibels.

In almost all cases, it is not mechanical noise arising from the central gear box or nacelle of a turbine that residents react to, but rather the sound of the blades, which in modern turbines are mammoth appendages well over 100 feet long, as they slice through the air.

Turbine noise can be controlled by reducing the rotational speed of the blades. But the turbines on Vinalhaven already operate that way after 7 p.m., and George Baker, the chief executive of Fox Island Wind — a for-profit arm of the island’s electricity co-operative — said that turning the turbines down came at an economic cost.

“The more we do that, the higher goes the price of electricity on the island,” he said.

A common refrain among homeowners grappling with sound issues, however, is that they were not accurately informed about the noise ahead of time.

Richard R. James, an acoustic expert hired by residents of Vinalhaven to help them quantify the noise problem, said there was a simpler solution: do not put the turbines so close to where people live.

“It would seem to be time for the wind utility developers to rethink their plans for duplicating these errors and to focus on locating wind turbines in areas where there is a large buffer zone of about a mile and one-quarter between the turbines and people’s homes,” said Mr. James, the principal consultant with E-Coustic Solutions, based in Michigan.

Vinalhaven’s wind farm enjoys support among most residents.

But that is cold comfort for residents living near the turbines.

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(Archive Article) Huge Wind Turbine Farm Opens Off Southeast England

I will be uploading a series of New York Times articles that I downloaded from my Kindle over the past couple of years.  One thing that I really appreciate about the New York Times articles is that they include numbers.  We simply must have some numbers relating to amount of power generated, area occupied, construction costs, operating costs, etc. if we are to have intelligent discussions about renewable energy and possible alternatives.

Unfortunately, this article contains no cost data, but other data are presented, and that is a start.

Huge Wind Turbine Farm Opens Off Southeast England 

Published September 23 or 24, 2010

By JULIA WERDIGIER

LONDON — The world’s largest offshore wind turbine farm, with a capacity to power more than 200,000 homes for a year, opened on Thursday off the coast of southeast England.

The wind farm is operated by Vattenfall, a Swedish energy company, and has 100 turbines spread over 13.5 square miles. At 377 feet tall each, the turbines are visible from the coast in Kent. The wind farm took more than two years to build and is expected to generate 300 megawatts of electricity.

Vattenfall’s turbines mean that power generated from wind can reach five gigawatts in Britain, enough “to power all homes in Scotland,” Chris Huhne, Britain’s energy secretary said in a statement.

“We’re in a unique position to become a world leader in this industry,” Mr. Huhne said. “We are an island nation, and I firmly believe we should be harnessing our wind, wave and tidal resources to the maximum.”

The British government has said it aims to support the renewable energy industry to achieve its goal to get 15 percent of energy from sources like wind farms by 2020. The efforts have focused mainly on wind power in recent years. Wind accounts for about 4 percent of Britain’s electricity needs.

Some industry executives feared that more government investment would be threatened in October, when the coalition government presented its program of spending cuts intended to reduce the budget deficit.

Britain has about 260 wind farms operating across the country and off its coasts.

Vattenfall operates 700 wind turbines in countries including Sweden, Germany, Poland and Britain.

The British wind farm is part of Vattenfall’s plan to double its electricity generated from wind power from 2009 to 2011 by building nine wind farms in six countries.
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Bioenergy Pumps New Life into Pulp and Paper Mills

From the website of the U.S. Dept. of Energy.  Personally, I find this announcement to be rather unsatisfying. Which biofuels are they producing?  Ethanol?  Biodiesel?  What processes are they using?  What are the break-even costs of the finished products and how do those compare with similar products produced by conventional means?

I am all for turning wastes into useful products, but we need more information than what this announcement provides.

Bioenergy Pumps New Life into Pulp and Paper Mills

December 13, 2011 

Old Town Fuel and Fiber, a former pulp mill, converts a portion of
the wood chips used to make pulp to biofuels. |
Energy Department photo.

Neil Rossmeissl

General Engineer

What does this project do?

• Breathes new life into shuttered factories and mills.
• Saves and creates jobs.

Despite Americans’ voracious appetite for paper products -- a staggering 700 pounds per person annually -- America’s pulp and paper industry has been struggling as of late due to competition from countries where environmental standards are less stringent and labor rates are lower. To stem plant closings and retain American jobs, the Energy Department’s Biomass Program is helping the industry diversify by producing bio-based products such as biofuels and bio-based chemicals.

We started in Maine, which is the second leading paper-making state by volume, producing three million tons of pulp in 2009. Today, there are nine paper companies employing approximately 7,400 people with an average annual salary of over $63,000. However, due to the weak economy and overseas competition, the current industry is struggling to stay afloat.

The struggle of paper mills in this region is distilled in the story of Penobscot Chermical Fiber Company. In 1882, a saw mill in Old Town, Maine, began using its wood byproducts to produce fiber as a commercial product. This repurposing of the mill created a new venture which became the Penobscot Chemical Fiber Company, a staple of the community that produced pulp fiber and quality jobs for over 100 years.

However, in 2006 the economic pressures became too great and the last owner, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, officially shut down the mill – costing 400 workers their jobs in the process. But where many saw a dying industry, a small group of investors saw potential. That same year, they bought the mill and submitted a proposal to the Energy Department to convert a portion of the wood chips used to make pulp to biofuels. Its application was selected and since then the mill has reopened as Old Town Fuel and Fiber and 300 people were rehired. The management team has been working with us as part of the Biomass Program’s Integrated Biorefinery portfolio to re-purpose the site to produce fuel, fiber and other products.

This might seem like an isolated example, but the entire pulp and paper industry is well-positioned for this kind of bioenergy re-invention. They understand the technology to deconstruct wood, have an experienced and capable work force, and the biomass supply chain is already in place. Because the jobs are higher quality, they can also get support from state and local authorities. Many of these converted mills could be repurposed and commissioned within 12-15 months after approvals, saving jobs and providing economic opportunity across states such as Maine, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York.

Marriott in Deal to Reduce Energy Use at Hotels

The following was gleaned from an article in the Dec. 13 New York Times with the above title.

Marriott International, has signed a deal to reduce its hotels’ energy use, particularly during times of peak demand.

Marriott will save on electric bills and also earn incentive payments from utilities as a reward for its efforts during peak periods when utilities struggle to meet demand and often have to pay high prices for electricity.

But the success or failure of the program, will be in how well it can make the cuts without affecting its customers.

Marriott signed the agreement with Constellation Energy last month and plans to adopt the energy-saving program at 264 of its hotels in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and in Texas and California.

The VirtuWatt energy management system from Constellation will work with the hotel’s property management system to track power use and automatically activate the cuts when utilities are strained.

Constellation will cover about half the cost of installing the automated technology, but most hotels would break even on the investment within two years and generate at least 25 percent returns — and as much as 100 percent returns — by the end of the five-year agreement through the cost savings and the incentive payments.

“In effect, the hotels act like a generator in the market, and a reduction in consumption is roughly the same as the addition of a new generator to the system,” a utility representative said. “And so we pay them roughly what we would have paid a generator to produce the same amount of energy.”

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Ancient Italian Town Now Has Wind at Its Back

The following was gleaned from a September 28, 2010 New York Times article with the above title.  I believe it provides insight into why some European communities have found it economically feasible, even beneficial, to incorporate renewable energy into their energy mix while few American communities have found that to be the case.

Faced with sky-high electricity rates, small communities in Italy have turned to making renewable energy. More than 800 Italian communities now make more energy than they use because of the recent addition of renewable energy plants.

The Italian town of Tocco da Casauria was motivated to adopt renewable energy because Italy already had among the highest electricity rates in Europe, and nearly three times the average in the United States.

 High electricity prices in Italy are a result of various forces: Italy has almost no fossil fuels of its own, and until last year, it banned nuclear power plants.  And, as in much of Europe, the lure of alternative power here was sweetened by feed-in tariffs — government guarantees to buy renewable electricity at an attractive set price from any company, city or household that produces it.

In the United States, where electricity is cheap and government policy has favored setting minimum standards for the percentage of energy produced from renewable sources rather than direct economic incentives like Europe’s feed-in tariffs, stimulating alternative energy has been only mildly successful. But in countries where energy from fossil fuels is naturally expensive — or rendered so because of a carbon tax — and there is money to be made, renewable energy quickly starts to flow.

With its four wind turbines, Tocco is now essentially energy independent from a financial standpoint, generating 30 percent more electricity than it uses. Production of green electricity earned the town 170,000 euros, or more than $200,000, last year.

Impressed with their new turbines, Tocco’s residents have lately turned to renewable resources to resolve other civic problems.  An installation of solar panels now lights walkways, powers the office and generates an income of 1,500 euros a year, or $2,000, to pay for maintenance at the town’s ancient cemetary.

A growing number of wealthier homeowners are paying these experts to install solar panels. The stucco home of Domenico Marini, a dental technician, has roof panels in addition to a koi pond and garden gnomes. His monthly electricity bills have dropped to $0 from as much as $700.